Long Time Dying
Exit the King. (Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh.)
In the event, the audience at the Lyceum didn't appear to mind sitting for an hour and three- quarters. I myself did mind, latterly.
The story of Exit the King is simple and universal. King Berenger is several centuries old because he has persistently put off the duty of dying. He is every man who ever lived, every man who accepts the universe as his own personal empire and is not prepared to leave it. Around him, his universe has crumbled into nonsense, decay is so advanced that whole rivers keep vanishing down holes in the ground, the walls are cracked, and his time has come; but he won't admit it. His second, young, wife (Natasha Parry)
keeps him bound to human love and earthly delights, but her grip is weakening as the universe degenerates. His first wife (Googie Withers) and his court physician and executioner (Graham Crowden) are the voices of brute reality, summon- ing poor old Bercnger to perform the Ceremony, the act of renunciation.
It's a great old lark, and obviously a wonderful play to act, particularly for Crowden, as the Idiot-Gothic harbinger of doom; and for Miss Withers, who plays a somewhat unvarying role without much variety, but with immense power and concentration; and of course for Guinness, who carries the burden of all mankind from his first grotesque entrance in pyjamas and regalia.
The set, too, which later decays before our eyes, is a nice domineering piece of morbid psychology, and there are fine conjuring tricks by which folk disappear as their functions come to an end. It's a very impressive thing lonesco has done; but it is not, I think, a play.
Without the high-powered acting talent of this production, Exit the King would be an intolerable bore. There's good stuff in it, and death is a fine subject; but the good stuff is stretched thin and the last thirty minutes aged me ten years. Okay, okay, I heard myself muttering, the old boy's good and dead now, why don't we broach the whisky and start the wake? But he kept right on dying.
There were jokes in the script, of course. One in particular was the joke in which you create a medieval situation and then throw in something like a zebra crossing, or a pair of nylons, to paralyse the audience. lonesco used this crude old gag again and again, without a scruple. I would be ashamed. It is fair to add that the rest of the customers seemed entranced, and went quite wild with ehthusiasm at the end.
The other event eagerly awaited this week was the Drama Conference at the McEwan Hall. On the basis of the opening session, I felt it wasn't going to be much (un, but I was tickled by the little induction receivers and headphones which were on hire for half-a-dollar. With these, you can tune in to the platform and turn up the volume, or switch to a French or German trans- lation. I instantly discovered that you could also nip out for a smoke, or a sneer, or a wash, and keep tuned in. Technology is not entirely useless. If they had used this system at the lonesco, I for one would have contemplated death more bravely.
But it would be a pity to make my last Festival word a sneer. have skipped much in Edinburgh this year. The Fringe has produced some very acceptable drama, pleasant singing. Very little hilarity, I fear, but We can't have everything. It has been a good Festival, full of genuine nourishment and excitement and life.
CLIFFORD" HANLEY
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